Oyo ACN hails police on union leader’s arrest

The police have been hailed for arresting the factional leader of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) in Oyo State, Alhaji Lateef Akinsola, a.k.a. Tokyo, who has been on the police wanted list.

In a statement, the State Publicity Secretary of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Mr. Dauda Kolawole, said the police should also arrest Akinsola’s rival, Alhaji Mukaila Lamidi, a.k.a. Auxiliary.

The party said: “It is only in Oyo State that those who disturbed the peace throughout their party’s reign, who used NURTW kingpins as their shield and spilled the blood of Eleweomo and many of our kinsmen, are walking the streets freely.

“More frightening is the fact that these remorseless groups are regrouping to bring back the period of blood, using the same NURTW kingpins.

“We hail the police for arresting Tokyo, but the command should not rest until it arrests Auxiliary too. The truth is that the NURTW kingpins behind the bloodletting of the past did not do so in isolation. They were crudely abetted by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) government of that time.

“Tokyo and Auxiliary are the untouchables in the crime world of Oyo State. They have been boasting that some PDP governorship hopefuls in the state would use their link to the Federal Government to reverse their ‘Wanted’ tags.

“Oyo people will resist every attempt by the PDP, using hoodlums, to destabilise the peace-loving administration of Governor Abiola Ajimobi. Before now, no one could sleep with an eye closed. If you leave your home in the morning, you would not be sure of returning in one piece. Only God knows how many of our people were killed in the alliance of evil between these NURTW kingpins and the PDP.

“We urge the police to ensure that Tokyo accounts for what transpired in those bloody years. His arrest and, hopefully, arraignment would be a litmus test on the police’s integrity and a demonstration of its political partiality or otherwise.

“In the last few months, a former senator, who is aspiring to become governor in 2015, has been in cahoots with Tokyo and Auxiliary. He has been telling them that the President directed him to be meeting with them.

“The plan is to use them to foment trouble and make Oyo ungovernable for the ACN. Now that Tokyo has been arrested, he should be properly grilled and the truth of this allegation teased out of him.”